In
English, the verb ‘hear’ has two semantic units, the sensory action ‘to listen’
and perception as a result of the action. The verb ‘see’ also has two semantic
units with one indicating the action of looking and the other indicating
perception as the result. Only a small number of Chinese verbs resemble such
English verbs as ‘hear’ and ‘see’. Most Chinese verbs resemble the verb
‘listen’ and ‘look’ in English, which only indicate the sensory actions without
a built-in semantic unit indicating result. Therefore, there are no such verbs
as ‘hear’, ‘see’, ‘find’, ‘kill’ and so on in Chinese. For example, the verb tīng听(to listen) and kàn看 (look) do not indicate whether
the sound has been heard or whether the object has been seen. Not having a
built-in semantic unit indicating result, Chinese verbs have to take an
additional resultative unit to report whether the
action is successful. This unit is what we call the resultative
complement. It is placed immediately after the verb to indicate the result of
the action. In the case of tīng听(to listen) and kàn看(to look), the verb jiàn见(to perceive) must be used
as a complement to form combos that indicate perception, such as tīngjiàn听见for ‘hear’ and kànjiàn看见for ‘see’ .